Music and entertainment systems in general are mostly a tangled web of cords. For example, cords to connect guitars to amps, cords to connect speakers to sound reinforcement systems, etc. Cords are used for everything. Although there have been a number of wireless solutions over the years that free musicians from their cords, these solutions have been limited to wireless microphones and wireless guitar transmitters. These wireless devices mostly use standard UHF or VHF frequencies to transmit and receive analog data, although some of them are now starting to be digitally controlled.
A sound reinforcement system is an arrangement of microphones, electronic signal processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers that makes live or pre-recorded sounds—usually music or speech—louder, or that distributes the sound to a larger or more distant audience. A sound reinforcement system can simple, such as a small public address (PA) system in a coffeehouse consisting of a single microphone connected to a self-powered 100-watt loudspeaker system, or very complex, such as hundreds of microphones, complex mixing and signal processing systems, tens of thousands of watts of amplification, and multiple loudspeaker arrays, all overseen by a team of audio engineers and technicians (e.g., a famous entertainer or group performing a concert in a large arena or stadium). In both cases, these sound reinforcement systems reinforce sound to make it louder or distribute it to a wider audience.
Normally, when the band sets up, they arrange their instruments and instrument amplifiers on the stage. Once this is set up, they “mic up” which means that microphones and other forms of “input” are placed strategically to pick up the sounds emanating from the instrument amps, drums, vocals, etc., and physically connected to the mixing console. The mixing console has a plurality of audio channels, each dedicated to a single input (instrument, sound source of some kind, etc.). The outputs of the mixing console are routed to (typically) stereo channels, which are then sent to an amplification system. This mixing board, also known as a “soundboard,” is wired to either power amplifiers which are then wired to speakers, or “powered” speakers which have built in amplification that are generally pointed away from the stage and towards the audience.
At the same time, on the stage, a plurality of wires bundled together and terminated with an input box provides localized input for microphone cables and other sound sources. This device is commonly referred to as a “snake.” The snake is then routed to the mixing board, and each wire on the snake is plugged into the “input” of the corresponding channel on the board. In essence, the snake provides remote input jacks for the board. The setup process can be extensive and quite time consuming, depending upon the complexity of the gear and size of the show. Numerous cables must be removed from storage containers (“road cases”), uncoiled, and connected to the various pieces. Furthermore, at the conclusion of the show, all of this must be “broken down.” Despite improvements such as digital/analog conversion, these configurations are basically the same as it has been for 50 years or more, and are costly and time consuming to set up and “tear” down, as most musicians and “roadies” will explain. For example, the setup and teardown on large complex shows can cost into the tens of thousands, and sometimes a lot more. Much of this is due to extensive cabling that must be run.
A wireless musical instrument transmitter and receiver, such as a wireless microphone, is a microphone or “body pack” without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated. The musician generally plugs the body pack into the instrument via an analog cord that accepts the signal from the electric device (such as a guitar). As the musician plays the instrument, the signal is transmitted to the receiver, which is then plugged into, for example, the musician's guitar amplifier. Typically these systems utilize UHF or VHF frequencies, and have recently started to integrate audio/digital and digital/audio converters (ADC/DAC). ADC/DAC encodes the analog sound to digital signals before transmitting them to the receiver where they are then converted back to analog signals before being output. However, these wireless systems are subject to RF interference, tend to be unreliable and provide lower quality than wired systems. Other limitations include range limitations, latency, limitations on the number of wireless devices at a performance, etc.
As a result, there is a need for a wireless entertainment system that eliminates the complex cabling required in large sound reinforcement systems while preserving the quality and low latency requirements demanded by performers and their audiences.